When I was younger, a lot younger, I did a very stupid thing. I got drunk one night and I stole a car and went joy riding. Being young and stupid I did not realize that when I drove that car from Detroit to Toledo I crossed a state line I had committed a Federal offense. To make a long story short I was caught, tried and convicted.
I had the great good luck to be tried under a fairly new Federal law called the Youthful Offenders Act. Basically the YOA was a program pushed through with the thought of rehabilitation in mind. If you were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, had no previous record and the crime for which you were arrested was non-violent in nature you could be tried under the YOA.
The act mandated a six-year sentence, hard time and parole combined, and if you comple
